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The photos today come from Andrea Moore, an incoming MIA student concentrating on International Finance and Economic Policy.

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This photo was taken in Chicago’s Grant Park on Election Night in 2008. The city had been buzzing for weeks with now-President Obama in the race, and since I work right across from Grant Park, I knew I wanted to try for tickets to the Election Night rally. Luckily, I happened to be at my desk the minute the invitation was sent, and I pounced on the chance. We ended up way in the back (people were already lined up outside the park at 9 am or earlier), but I think we had the best vantage point: looking out on millions of people who all were having the same “this is history in the making” feeling. It was a big day no matter what your politics were.

This was taken in June 2008 from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. I was doing an impromptu night walk of the monuments with some friends, and when we got to the Lincoln Memorial, it started getting stormy and we stayed put for a while. It ended up just being an epic lightning storm, and I was trying to capture some of the strikes. Somehow, through blind luck with my point-and-shoot camera, I caught a lightning strike that was perfectly placed to mirror off the Reflecting Pool.

The last photo was taken in April 2005 in Madrid. I was studying there when Pope John Paul II passed away. With almost Catholicism the dominant religion there, it was huge news and spawned memorials all over the city. This picture was taken at a statue of the Pope that’s outside the Catedral de Almudena. People had flocked to the statue the day after he died, just standing and praying around the statue, lighting candles. I had done so much studying of the importance of Catholicism in Spain throughout history, like with Ferdinand and Isabela, but I hadn’t realized how central the religion still was in the present. Even though (full disclosure) I identify as Catholic as well, I almost felt like I was a stranger intruding on a private moment here.